


Life without Derek

by VanessaWolfie



Series: Major character death [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Silence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-01-01
Packaged: 2018-03-04 18:07:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3079094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VanessaWolfie/pseuds/VanessaWolfie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Stiles doesn‘t talk for three days after Derek dies.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life without Derek

**Author's Note:**

> To be read as seperate fic from "not fair".

Life without Derek

Stiles doesn‘t talk for three days after Derek dies. He goes through his day like normal, walking, working, doing what‘s he‘s supposed to, but he doesn‘t talk. Not a single word escapes his lips. His friends; his family, they all have different explanations. Isaac says he‘s just too devastated, Scott says he‘s not ready to talk when he knows Derek will never hear him again and Allison thinks he‘s in denial, that if he doesn‘t talk, he doesn‘t have to confirm that this actually happened. None of them are right. Stiles just, he doesn‘t have anything to say. Maybe Lydia got closest to the truth; she says he‘s always talked with humor, so of course he‘s not talking now, there‘s nothing humorous about this. Maybe all he’s ever been good at is being funny and now he doesn’t want or really know how to be funny so instead, he just shuts up.

The real reason Stiles doesn’t talk is that when they’d been together, Derek and him, they’d learned to end each other’s sentences, talk in riddles together and take the sarcastic joke ten pages further than necessary. Now that Derek’s gone, he needs to reprogram himself, so that his jokes won’t be half-said, or his riddles be without plot or his sarcastic run-on jokes not to be interpreted as mean words. He never wants to seem mean. (Maybe around Jackson, but that A-hole hasn’t showed up anywhere near them in _ages_ ).

After the three days, he gets back to talking. Not to mean that he goes back to being the machine of constant blabbering that he’s always been, but he starts saying hello, good morning, bye, how are you?; stuff like that. Because man, that’s the polite thing to do and leaving out those three fucking days of his life, Stiles tries his best to at least be polite. His mother taught him manners you know?

That’s the other thing. Stiles doesn’t have panic attacks. He doesn’t have nightmares that re-enact Derek’s death or display horrible scenarios where other people he loves die the same way. He’d anticipated that. It had happened when his mom died, so why not now? It’d been half of the reason, as shitty and selfish as that sounds, why he’d been so worried about his dad all these years. He just didn’t know if he could take another pair of nightmares, another set of panic attacks. But, he doesn’t have them. Derek, _Derek_ , has died and still, Stiles can live on. He isn’t half-dying or at least thinking he is every five minutes. He’s just, Stiles. He can see his dad is waiting for it, waiting for Stiles to break down and gasp while a panic attack rakes through his body.

Isaac insists that he keep close to the pack. It’s kind of funny, because as of right now, the pack is Stiles, Isaac, Scott and Allison. The twins had left town two years ago, claiming they’d gained some wisdom and confidence in their stay in Beacon Hills and were ready for leading their own pack. So, Stiles gets to hang out with the happy trio his friends are. They try to keep the loving touches too private rooms the first few days before Stiles corners Allison one night, because he knows she’s the only one of them that will understand he’s perfectly sincere, and tells her to stop with the bullshit and just fucking touch her boys around him. He lost a spouse, _partner_ , **_mate_ ,** not his fucking mind. He’s going to be okay even if they’re in love.

After one week he gets sick of being babysat. He gets sick of the sympathetic glances, looks, _stares_ , because werewolves are the most fucking obvious creatures in the world. They keep their feelings on their sleeves and maybe that’s Stiles’ problem; maybe he can’t do that anymore. Maybe he’s not capable of that anymore.

He throws himself into his work. His boss has never been as happy with him because he finishes everything in record time. Stiles doesn’t want to think about the reason. That because he lives alone now, no one to distract him, nothing to do, he finishes his work before he even gets around to cooking dinner.

That’s another thing. Stiles has to cook now. Every day of the week, he has to cook. Well, that’s a lie, Melissa and Allison actually take turns bringing him various dishes of food, but he’s told them to limit it to two meals per week so he’ll be forced to learn to do this again. Derek had spoiled him.

Sometimes he calls his dad or Scott or even Isaac just to, to talk and hear their voices because the silence is maddening. For such a quiet, brooding man, Derek sure leaves a silent world behind him. Stiles misses the fighting so much that sometimes he recites lines from former fights like play lines. He could be an actor for how good he is to pause whenever Derek is supposed to say something.

He thinks he’s not as good of a friend now as before. If he lets himself think about it, he realises everything he does has gotten a bit dimmer than before, it doesn’t glow as bright as it did with Derek. Even before Stiles knew Derek, he was energetic, playful and happy. He’s not like that now. He’s more like Derek had been when they first met. When he had lost so many he couldn’t count them, except he probably had the exact number in his head. Stiles needs to be that man now. It’s the only way he’ll survive. Because if he’ll let himself get back to the normal Stiles, he’ll have to let go of Derek too much. He’ll have to move on. It doesn’t sound that promising. It all just screams; _without Derek_.


End file.
